them to devote themselves to appropriate missionary work among the Indians, whose language they now speak.
- 4. Doing more for the civilisation and social improvement of the Indians than the mission can do unaided.
- 5. It would afford facilities for religious families to go into the country and make immediately a comfortable settlement, with the enjoyment of Christian privileges,—both those who might be introduced upon the lands now occupied by the mission and others who might be induced to go, and settle in the vicinity of the stations.
- 6. It would save the mission from the necessity of trading with immigrants. Those now enter the country (sic) expect to purchase or beg their supplies from the mission for a year or two, and it would be thought cruel to refuse provide (sic) such supplies.[1]
Then follow a few facts about Oregon but not a word on the political question or Whitman's trip to Washington. According to Lovejoy's recollection[2] Whitman felt that the Board disapproved of his action in coming East. Of this there is no record. Yet the self-defensive tone of his later letters reflects the same impression. In such a conjuncture what more effective defense could he have made than to show the urgency of the political crisis in Oregon and in Washington?
Whitman's journey in fact was measurably successful, and the requests of the mission were granted. The minute in regard to his project for an emigration was: "A plan which he proposed for taking with him, on his return to the mission, a small company of intelligent and pious laymen, to settle at or near the mission station, but without expense to the Board or any connection with it, was so far approved that he was authorized to take such men, if those of a suitable character and with whom satisfactory arrangements could be made, can be found."[3]
Such was Whitman's plan of emigration,[4] and how different from the legendary proposal to Tyler and Webster to take out a thousand emigrants! The fact that Whitman returned in company with the emigration of 1843 has been transformed by legend into the accomplishment of a previously announced purpose to organize and conduct such a body of emigrants. Whitman, however, did not
- ↑ Submitted to the Prudential Committee April 4, 1S43, Doct. Marcus Whitman. Abenakis and Oregon Indians, Letter-book, 248.
- ↑ Gray's Oregon, p. 326; Nixon, p. 311.
- ↑ Records of the Prudential Committee. Cf. Report of the A. B. C. F. M., for 1843, pp. 169–173; Missionary Herald, Sept., 1843, p. 356.
- ↑ He seems to have made it public in a measure before leaving Oregon. At any rate Hines refers to "the departure of Dr. Whitman to the United States with the avowed intention of bringing back with him as many as he could enlist for Oregon" as having alarmed the Indians. It was also rumored that the Nez Percys had dispatched one of their chiefs to incite the Indians of the buffalo country to cut off Whitman's party on his return. Hines's Oregon, Auburn and Buffalo, 1851, p. 143. Hines's narrative is based on his diary at the time.
